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It seems the world is returning to blogging. And giving the critical eye to my poor, neglected blog, I thought I should return to blogging, too.
In the past months, I’ve been working on my dissertation, taken a new job at Pontiac schools, and in general shifted the direction of my career and attentions. I love what I am doing, although I agonize about balancing the dissertation analysis and work (and all the other things life demands of all of us), but I really couldn’t be happier.
When I first made the shift, I blogged my last post for Gradhacker about what I have discovered as I bridge the gap between Higher Ed and K12, between theory and practice. The post can be found here: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/bridging-gap-theory-and-practice .
Meanwhile, in Pontiac Schools, I work as a Tech Integration Specialist. My role is to help integrate technology into instruction and develop best practices with the use of technology with my teachers. As part of that goal, I was able to open a Technology Cafe: a drop-in Tech center where teachers can identify what they want to learn, work in a co-learning space on online modules, and get individualized attention when they get stuck. The model seems to be working and I am constantly thinking about how to improve. I also take the “Tech Cafe to go”: heading out to buildings to meet with teachers at their lunch hours with a Menu of options of new things to learn and try. In addition, we are working to launch a Hackathon for our students and teachers in October. This is in the very early planning stages, but I was helped greatly by the good folks at IT in the D . Here I am on the podcast, getting ideas and asking for mentors to assist with this idea:http://www.itinthed.com/17630/episode-105-newmind-group-bamboo-detroit-pontiac-schools-hackathons/.
Let me know if you want to help with our Hackathon: we are hoping to get strong mentors as the students and teachers develop smartphone apps to address problems they see in the community.
